


Leap of Faith

by brutti_ma_buoni



Series: Triton verse [2]
Category: CW Network RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 00:50:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5647852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/pseuds/brutti_ma_buoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared and Jensen took to the stars, where there's no happy ever after but a whole bunch of adventure to be had together. Sometimes, adventuring bites back. Some things, you can't face together. Someday, maybe, it'll all come right. (Jared hopes to hell, because it's getting lonely out in the black.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The ton of glorious spaaaaaaace artwork for this story is available at http://cassiopeia7.livejournal.com/584718.html, and you have to go there and congratulate Deb on how incredible it all is!

“Third time lucky, Liddie, and so it was for us all,” is what Jared says, and after, he truly believes that is what cursed them when voyage number four rolls around. And yet, just then when he’s speaking, Jared’s life is sweeter than he knows how to tell. Sure, there’s a disconnect, but that’s something all families have when they’re broken through maturity. Isn’t it? Liddie’s so happy on her station, with her big bold husband who’s never set foot in zero-g and she thinks hung the stars. She’s rounding out in the belly, talking names and futures, schooling and dreams, and Jared’s so proud of his little sister, and the things she didn’t fall to, he hardly knows how to express it.

Now, sure, Liddie and Jonah don’t take to Jensen so much. But if Jared worried about people in the verse not taking to Jensen Ackles, he’d spend his life in desperation, and that’s never been his way. Jared’s known Jensen’s worth since he first set eyes on the baddest captain of them all, and eight years down the stretch, through love and livelihood and shared space, he’s never had cause to doubt it. Curse him, maybe, at a three bells changeover shift when the captain’s feeling amorous and the offcoming watch officer just wants to crash, but that’s the kind of problem most folks would kill for. So. Maybe Liddie thinks her brother needs a man who half the galaxy still don’t spit before naming, and maybe Jonah sniffs at Jensen’s farm world ‘ain’t’s and ‘don’t’s that Jared’s catching now, and maybe Jared won’t be godfathering Liddie’s brood any time foreseeable. But Jared’s happy. And maybe Liddie’s forgotten what gutter Jensen picked him up from, but Jared’ll never forget whoring, till that one captain saw he could be more. 

Today he’s happy because they’re heading into the deep again, and it’s the breath of the future in their lungs, and Jared knows how that goes. So he’s boastful, and Liddie can take a turn to shut her trap and hear about another’s life that she doesn’t know of. “Because that first trip out to the wild reaches of the Muse, you know we did well, right? But Vixen wasn’t kind to us, and I know Jensen worried we’d never amount to more than one little ship and the big bad world. So Amor was kind of our last shot at the big time and-“

Liddie’s eyes are gleaming, and Jared knows it’s the story not the money that’s making them shine. Liddie already had her share, because Jared’s not about to wolf out on family, even when they do sniff at his lover’s notoriety. Nope, this is pure storytelling now, and he relishes the tale. The rush past Aphrodite, the pirates on their tail, the new navigation that took them faster, on a hunch from Jensen that Wack backed to blazes against all the better judgement of the junior nav officers. Turned them up a new, fast, safer route out to Cupid Nebula, that Jensen sold straight out to five corps before giving the skeleton to the Galactic Survey, and made their voyage profits before they even landed cargo out in the black. And the cargo was gravy, landing in the middle of an oil famine they’d known nothing of when setting out, and having outdistanced the competition by months. 

Well. Jared spills it all, and even the seven month homeward journey hasn’t turned its sweetness stale. They got rich, and secure, pretty much. Jensen’s tiny new Corp has three ships now, and sure, one’s a hulk in dock for probably another year and a half being rebuilt from the ground, but none of the crew would complain. 

“The only thing is, Liddie,” Jared says, reluctantly, “We got two voyages out now, so we got to have Wack on the second. Which means changes aboard.” But Liddie’s no spacer, and she doesn’t understand just what that means to people living close confined the way they do. She shrugs. Probably never rated Wack either, because she doesn’t know space, and he’s certainly not the prettiest nor smartest-dressed man you’ll see. More fool Liddie. 

“Tell me about the star again,” is what she says. Right there, Jared remembers his kid sister just how she used to be, asking for stories from mom, or Jared later while their dad sank himself into a brew. And truly, Jared will never tire of this one. 

“Well, it wasn’t more than a smudge on the scope at first,” he starts, “But it was big, and not shifting. We hadn’t plotted for it, and it wasn’t in our direct route, so it would have been easy to pass it by. There’s a lot of gas clouds out in the deep, you know? But I… maybe I had a feeling. Maybe I just learned right who to tell about what that’s not plotted. So I asked Trig what he thought it was, and we checked every chart in creation, and damn if it wasn’t a new star.” He looks at Liddie, and they smile at each other, full of memory and enchantment. “It’s under VexCorp, so it’ll have some godawful name, Lids. Probably Virginal or Vehement or some shit. But it’s my star, and all the _Impala_ knows it. I’m never going to forget that, sister. Never.”

*

Maybe it’s the star telling, or maybe Jared’s just sentimental tonight, but it’s hard to pull away from Liddie this time. He won’t see her for a year or so, maybe more if their plans don’t fall right, and she’ll be a mom by then, with the stars put out of her mind for diapers and messy infants. 

But there’s Jensen in their quarters, and Jared’s always going to want to go home for that, in the end. He bangs through the sleeping room door, to find Jensen naked in their bed, and the greeting on his lips turns to panting soon enough. It’s a big station, and a built one, but he’s pretty certain their neighbour bunks will hear this night, and Jared can’t bring himself to be sorry. 

He’s speaking into Jensen’s neck when they’re soft-sated and collapsed after that flurry of want. “So, ‘m guessing your Ma caught her shuttle okay?”

He likes Ma Ackles, a whole lot, but this week with her bunking with them has not been so easy. Jensen chuckles. “Oh yeah. She was packed and ready four hours in advance, and I had to talk the shuttle cap into letting her on ahead of schedule because she was so scared she’d miss him. But he’s a good kid, from the outer moons, and he knows how people get.”

In truth, Ma Ackles being here, no matter how inconvenient to a cockstruck lover, has been a triumph of pioneering over fear. Jensen’s people don’t fly, and the station is way beyond their comfort. Double leaps beyond Arcady, which is the big step most of them never make? Never in their minds. But since they were turning about with a bare two weeks to spare, Jensen couldn’t fly them over to Green Acres this time, and his mom declared she was prepared to fly to him for just this once. It meant a hell of a lot to Jensen, he knows. 

“She still happy?” Jared checks in, though he knows what the answer will likely be. Ma Ackles isn’t demanding of life. Quite the opposite. 

“Yep,” says Jensen, and rolls himself so they can look as well as speak, so close they’re near lip-to-lip, and Jared breathes in his words. “She’s pretty satisfied with her investment.” So she should be, in honest truth, since the Ackles family didn’t back Jensen’s plans till the last trip, and got the payday of a lifetime through dumb luck and nepotism. Jared’s not sorry. Well, mostly not.

“She still won’t let us call it _Silver_?” Because their new-old ship has a cursed former name that needs obliterating, and Jared’s been agitating for this one ever since the matter was raised. 

Jensen starts to laugh, the way he always does when the name is raised, and Jared knows truthfully this is why the name will never stick. “Jay, what makes you think she don’t know why you want that name? My momma’s a nice lady. Ain’t gonna see a ship of hers get named for slick and fucking. You better give it up.” 

Jared pouts at him, till Jensen says, “But she said _Argentina_ ’s okay by her. It’s ‘silver’ in old speak. So long as you never let on you know that, she’ll be gravy.”

Which is cause for another bout of kissing, that leads to Jared sliding down the bed to lick at Jensen’s slicked-open asshole just one more time, ending with silver all over his tongue as well as the sheets and Jensen’s skin. But it ends happy, wet and hot and entwined, shooting down each other’s throats in comradely harmony. _Argentina_ it is. And tomorrow, they’re taking off for their fourth voyage together as free men. Jared’s life’s full of good things.

*

They set Wack to refit and pilot the old _Impala_ , so this time they have a new command to get used to. It’s not a bad feeling, Jared’s discovering, three days in. The Imp was home to them these six years since Jensen first set up alone, and he’ll love it always for that, but any ship’s too small when you’re out in the deep, and having some new spaces to inhabit is a small help in feeling spacious. The captain’s cabin aboard the _Delta_ isn’t all that, but it’s tucked away from the main officer quarters which means they can get loud if they want. Or need. Seeing the tight projections of bulkheads and pipework into the basic box of the cabin, Jared suspects some of that ‘loud’ will be swearing and bashed knees more than ecstatic begging, but that’s what you give up for the stars. 

Besides, now he’s a shareholder, he has a need to know they’re travelling efficiently, and this ship is packed to hell with grain and rare metals, for the seeding belt out Mnemosyne way. Jared’s share of cargo is still a tiny one, but each of the voyages they’re funding this time, he has over 1% of the take, first time he’s had anything before a decimal point, and a sign of just how much he’s not that penniless whore kid these days. Sweet prospects, too. Mnemosyne’s not unknown, the cosy side of the Muse archipelago and well within reach, but its system's been not more than three years in the terraforming, so there are prospectors and pioneers all over the moons, and not a single Corp has a firm foothold. If you can get in before the towns are founded, you have a chance. This much, Jared’s learned. Towns, and mines. But they try to stay away from mining settlements, where they can. Jensen still dreams of Demetrius now and then, the way Jared still dreams of Scythe. Just their past, and if Jensen avoids deep excavations when planetside, the way Jared avoids the scythed on station, that’s prudence talking more than anything. 

It’s not a bad crew, for this trip. Nix is back, first time since back on _Lucifer_ , which has lightened Jensen’s mood since Wack had to be moved on for all their sakes. Better, she brought a new girlfriend along as their electrical pro, where Wack walked off with Jupe, because Jupe and the _Impala_ are a pairing that won’t be broken easy. Mag’s a beauty, and funny too. Good company in the off hours. Plus Jericho as third now, busting proud in his stripes, and it’s only their brand new second, Mullen, that gives Jared pause. 

Some might assume it’s jealousy talking, because Jared may not have seniority, but he’s a better nav than Jericho these days, what with all the stuff Jensen spills when he’s not officially captaining but can’t stop running his mouth about the stars. No one would blink at Jared seconding. But they’d be wrong. Him and Jensen, they have a deal on this. No favourites, no appearance of, and Jared’s better not working too direct to Jensen in truth. Too much togetherness, on a ship where ‘apart’ is never a real option, and that’s a recipe for souring love that they’ve no intent to cook up. Jared’s Quartermaster this trip, every fibre of the ship’s workings his to command, barring only the path to the stars. Yeah, he misses the nav work, something deep at times. But being Q, that’s not nothing. It makes him like the head of the family, he sometimes thinks… okay, maybe not in command, has to admit that’s still the captain’s role and not one Jensen’s about to cede to anyone. Not even Jared. Maybe he’s the mom here. Food on tables, cabins clean, stores stashed, risks banished, bad behaviours rooted out. Officer-mom reporting, he tells Jensen one day early in the voyage, and it becomes a running joke for the two of them, raising brows among the juniors and laughter between themselves. And, aside from all that, Jensen’ll never again leave fuel oversight to someone he doesn’t trust with all their lives, so the Q on Jensen’s ship now? Has power. Nate taught them that much, long years ago.

So, Mullen doesn’t rub Jared wrong because of seniority. He’s a good officer, and deserves it from all Jared sees. He’s just… he’s space school through and through. A family of spacers, by all he tells his fellow officers, taking the black as his by right. There’s something about his confidence, that this place is his habitat, that he’s born to be an officer… whatever it is, it riles Jared up. 

“Go easy Jay,” says Jensen, after a too-tense officer meeting on the bridge. “I know he looks down that nose, and I know it gets your goat, but he’s good people. And if you had a nose that big, you’d be lookin’ slantwise down it too.” 

Maybe it is just that, the unfortunate squint Mullen has down his posh-boy Roman nose. Maybe that’s all that’s up in Jared’s face. He laughs, a little, and vows to do better. They have more than eleven months ahead, and feuding two weeks out is crazy bad planning. 

*

He lets it ride, of course. Just as Jensen’s early hard work is slackening, as they get out of the congested freight routes and into the unconquered black, Jared’s is bubbling up. Every Quartermaster has to let shit ride first week out while the new rubs off of everyone; every Q worth his salt then spends a good couple weeks making damn sure everyone knows that’s not the way it’ll be for the real voyage. There’s getting slack in the black when watch isn’t close, and then there’s setting out with bad habits that store up trouble for everyone if you let’em slip too long.

Which is how Jared finds himself down among the urchins, and how their fourth voyage goes to hell in ways Jared never foresaw. 

Jensen’s formalised it now, the taking on of rough kids, battered kids, kids that’ll never see the black for themselves, because likely they’ll never see twenty either. His dad’s found them one, for even Green Acres has its share of bad, sad families. Jared brought Kai, and Kai found them a couple more last voyage out but one, and now it’s a regular thing. There are two on the Imp today, sisters, that Wack fell over in a station gutter and knew deserved better than lifting skirts and knitting trash into posies. It’s never enough, but it’s never been a bad bet yet. Take a kid out of hell, it’ll warm your heart how easy they rebound.

This trip, along of Kai who isn’t a rookie nowadays but still looks over them, they have Bee, second trip out and still big-eyed at the black but a promising addition to the catering crew and a warm, honey-sweet person to have aboard on a long trip. Enemies with no one, which is a trick few people have, though Jensen laughs when Jared says it and points out Jared hasn’t an enemy he knows. And now Rush, one of the youngest they ever took, sandy and freckled, thin and eager, with the marks of hard living all over his body. He’s a good kid, they think, when they take him on, and space crazed for sure. 

Well, that part turns out true enough. 

Rush don’t like the confinement of space, and Jared’s always finding him running down gangways, hiding in odd nooks reserved for store reordering, down in the kitchens when he’s due on shift… A world of petty offences that nobody should take too amiss from a feral teenager trying to find his path back. It’s unfortunate that one place he chooses to be unauthorised turns out to be where Mullen’s planning an audit of the whole grip crew, skills, mech and all. Jared’s heard enough bitching from Nix on this one to last a full voyage, and it’s only two months in, yet. But Mullen likes things just so, and he has the right in seconding. Jensen’s standing off, waiting to see if Mullen slackens just enough for deep space, before dropping a private word if need be about officer style and man management. Jared wishes Jen would hurry it up, honestly, but maybe that’s the wiser course. 

All of which means there’s two shifts out of three of the grip crew all watching when Mullen busts Rush out of his hideaway, and the kid cheeks him and spits in his direction, and the _Delta_ may not be military, nor rightly Corp-disciplined, but there’s some shit you still don’t do to the captain’s second. Which is how Rush gets marched up onto the bridge before half the officers, and Jared too, since he’d dropped by for a hello to Jensen and a look out at the Cascade while they’re passing. 

The Cascade’s a beauty, but right now Jared resents how much of Jensen’s time she’s taking, since the pathways through just aren’t well mapped. Jensen reckons the Cascade shifts like quicksand, in spacetime, and that’s why no plot ever goes smooth. Any officer with an ounce of nav know-how has been drawn into the dance of safety versus speed, and the challenge that represents to their learning. Jared never looked at space with anything other than thrill, so he forgets, sometimes, that the black can send men mazy. He hadn’t anticipated – nobody had – that Rush might be one of them. That while the Cascade boiled outside, the kid’s attention would be nowhere on Mullen’s pompous narrating of his trivial sins, nor even really on the stern face Jensen is putting on to show the captain recognises the deep offence of rudeness that Rush must never repeat. Rush looks outside, and starts to twitch, and fidget. Jensen says, “Kid? You listening?”

Rush doesn’t respond, not really. He's too fixed on the whirling endless dark out there. Pupils wide, breath shallow. He looks on the edge of screaming terrors. So Jensen reaches out a hand for Rush’s shoulder. He goes slow, and clear, because the kids they take have had a lot of knocks, and too often a man with power reaching out to them has ended in blood and pain. But Jensen’s good with the kids, and careful, so it’s never gone too bad before. This time, Rush twists away, shouting something that’s too high and scrambled and scared to be heard clear, and Jensen kind of grabs at him, because you don’t want hysteria on the bridge of any ship, let alone one that’s in the middle of the Cascade. And Rush sinks his teeth into the meat of Jensen’s arm and worries at it till there’s blood spurting. 

The bridge is kind of silent then, because, what the hell just happened. Jensen looks down at his gnawed arm and says, calm enough, “Shit. Kid, you’re confined. Dil, find a store cell and sling him in till he’s cooled down. I guess I’m off to medlab. Jericho, you okay to run nav?”

Mullen opens his mouth, probably to say something pissy about stepping up for his duty, and Jensen sighs. “Mull, you’re not on the bridge right now, I’m gonna be ten minutes with med, this is not a step-up crisis, okay?” He says it nice, but there’s reprimand enough there for Mullen to flush darkly. Oh well. Jared can deal with seeing him a little embarrassed. 

Meantime, Jared’s dealing with _not_ rushing to Jensen’s side, dabbing at the blood, calling for tourniquets or anything more. Jensen’s fine, or will be once he’s stitched, and the captain needs nobody fluffing all over him with concern just now. Jared may hang about casual-like on the bridge till Jensen returns, but that’s nobody else’s mind. 

“Shit, Jensen,” says Jericho, when he comes back, bandaged up and still bleeding a little by the looks. “Hope that kid’s had his shots.”

“Sure he has,” says Jensen, seriously. “We don’t take anyone aboard without screening and shooting. You know that. I wonder what the hell got into the kid?” He looks at Jared, and jerks his head a little. _Come here. Please? Don’t make it a thing._ Jared wanders over, looking up at the Cascade, passing a remark with Jericho about the comet that’s birthing here. 

“Do me a favour? Keep an eye on Rush?” Jensen says it low, though not secret-low. “Got a feeling there’s something bad wrong there. Kind of trouble you might recognise.” Jared nods, and rubs a hand along Jensen’s neck. 

“Got it.” _Glad you’re okay. Love you. Don’t get bit too often, okay?_

Jensen looks up at him, leaving them exchanging a soft smile that the other officers’ll mostly pretend is invisible, and Jared goes back on duty, leaving the stars behind. 

*

It’s not a bad trip, exactly, but nothing’s going too easy aboard the _Delta_ this time out. Fractious, that’s how it feels, Jared thinks, and it’s uncomfortable and unfamiliar where once he felt so very cosily at home. It’s not the new ship, which is plusher than Impala and good to the crew; and it’s only partly Mullen. Everything just seems off with the voyage, and that’s a shitty way to be on the outbound, knowing they have so many months ahead. A storage pen of wheat gets damp from a tiny condenser failure, starts sprouting and swelling, and has to be jettisoned at a dead loss to their Corp for fear of bursting something critical in the hull. They hit a solar storm that nobody picked up, just off of Clio where the dark skies hide it best. A whole recirc system fails out of nowhere, and has to be rewired from scratch, leaving them only two systems from breathing space gas and mighty uncomfortable about that. 

“Glitchy,” says Mag, turning up her nose when a couple locks fail a week later. “Might be that storm did some hidden damage. I’m gonna go over everything with the team, if that’s cool?” Jared nods. Of course it is. ‘Glitchy’ and ‘deep space’ are not concepts anyone wants to combine. Her report back is reassuring, but only because it’s so dull, full of small faults that take time, and need power closedowns in affected areas, diversions from the grip crew to backfill basic electrics, and teams working full shifts where usually they’d only have been on tokens, now that navigation’s a matter of pointing towards a distant star and crossing the black oceans fast and steady. 

Jensen starts to look a little blue as their progress slows. They’re a million miles off space death and fuel outage, but they’re falling behind their projections. Dealing in the deepest quarters ain’t always about being first; often, it’s just having the right stuff that your captive buyers need, month in, month out. But first never hurts when it comes to negotiating a good price, let’s say. And Jensen’s usually first. Or ahead of the mass, maybe. This time, they know MechaCorp had a couple freighters two months behind in fit out, and it’s fair betting that others were in the game too. Mecha’s rarely the innovator among the Corps. 

Meantime, the officers’ mess is getting tetchier by the week, as Mullen’s arrogance mingles with Nix’s peeve at her girlfriend’s distracted busyness, Jericho’s visible wish that he’d gone with Wack as second instead of hanging about this crew. Junior officers lose their sparkle, start to form little cliques, and Jared hates to see it. Jensen’s always run a friendly crew, sharing duty without overly standing on rank in the off hours, but it’s starting to melt away. Maybe it always would, what with their little Corp starting to grow. It could never stick at just friends, partying away on a ship to nowhere. But this feels sharper, and smarts more, than Jared expected the transition to be. 

He finds himself hanging with Nix and Mag more and more now, getting away from Mullen and Jericho’s mutual antagonism, and the rumble of offence always on the bridge. It leaves him less time with Jensen, down to official meetings and private times. Jared starts to lose the feel of the stars, even, living more in the belly of the ship. 

It’ll fix, next trip out, because they won’t be crewing with Mullen again, not while Jared has breath, so it’s a matter of holding on and not making things worse among the crew, that’s all. That, and taking time for Jensen when he gets it. 

“Your birthday’s coming up,” he says, idly, one night when Jensen comes to bed at a sensible hour, praise be. "It's a big one. Crew's gonna want to mark it."

Jensen wrinkles his nose, because he’s never really liked to celebrate, but it’s one of those ships’ rituals that everyone can get behind, and never makes for comment, even if the celebration has become predictable with time. “I guess it’d be the right thing. Get everyone together and take a load off,” says the captain, gloomily, and yeah, that’s the way it is. Jared kisses him hard, because Jensen will hate the awkwardness of enforced togetherness among people pretending to get along, but he’ll do it, because it’s what a captain does. Also because Jared loves him, which he might just need to remind himself of now and again.

“When are you back on watch?”

“Six bells,” says Jensen, and that’s early, means they can’t take their time. On the other hand…

“You alone?” Meaning, mostly, is Mullen on duty with you? Because anyone else, Jared can just tip them a nod. 

Jensen’s mouth curls, recognising the trend of Jared’s thoughts. “As it happens, I have a couple hours alone time on the bridge, yeah. Thought the juniors deserved a little time off, what with the Cascade time they all put in. And it’s blacker than a coalbunker outside just now. Nav’s just a theory, we won’t hit anything for a week or more.

“Oh, Captain,” says Jared, shaking his head all solemn. “I don’t think it’s advisable for you to watch all on your lonesome. But luckily, I have a free watch this morning, and I’m prepared to sacrifice my free time to support you.”

Jensen laughs aloud, because Jared and coy are not bedfellows he’d recognise, and takes it for what it is. They mess with hands and rubbing off on one another to a quick, heavy sleep, before wandering up to the bridge to relieve Jericho at a very prompt six bells. Side-eyeing them, for sure, but Jericho goes off watch with a grin, too, and for a moment it’s more like they were on the Imp again. 

Better still, when Jensen puts Jared in the pilot seat, and crawls himself under the _Delta_ ’s unfamiliar dash. “Tell me if we hit anything, kid,” he says, and Jared stares out at the featureless black nothing, while Jensen gets his mouth where it matters most, and reverses the way they first started to love. 

Yeah, it’s not a new star in the verse, but Jared’ll take Jensen’s mouth swallowing him down while he looks out over the wastes of deep space any day of the year. And, what’s more, turns out the _Delta_ ’s dash is bigger and fancier than any Jared’s seen, giving it plenty of redundant space that he can sit the captain down on when it comes to reciprocation time. 

“I miss this,” he says, when Jensen’s sprawled over him in the pilot seat and they’re both idly coming down from need to business. “Next voyage, you reckon it’d be too bad if I was to third officer? I don’t think we’d be all on top of each other, not really. This Q job feels too far off.”

“You think?” Jensen says, and it’s cautious so Jared gulps back a fear that they’re not on the same page. “I worried you were liking the independence more. But I miss you up here, Jay. Let’s do it.”

Settled on a course they can’t possibly follow for 18 months minimum, and happier for it, they turn to conscientious replotting a bearing that’s been unchanged for over a week. This is what it should be, Jared thinks. Both of them on the bridge, knowing just where they’re headed.

***************************


	2. Chapter 2

Jensen’s 40th birthday party is pretty good, considering the tetchy state of ship and crew. Nothing blows up, nobody has a fight, Jensen ‘finds’ a stash of better liquor than the crew’s had since they launched, and a shade or six of tension bleeds out of the _Delta_ atmosphere. There’s iced cake, and some precious fruit stores, and crewmembers who brought their own gear aboard get into civvies and bring some colour and variety to the scene. 

About halfway through, Jared notices Kai watching Rush, and tucks it in back of his mind to ask her about it later. Could be she has a crush, though Rush must be three-four years her junior and she’s rarely been so minded before. But she’s loudly condemned Rush ever since the kid threw his little tantrum and tried to gnaw a chunk off Jensen, so Jared suspects it’s nothing so friendlike that makes her watch him so. 

But there’s dancing, and whooping as he swings Jensen around the landing dock they cleared of its shuttle for this once, and he lets it slide amid the good feelings of the night.

Two days later, and Kai’s standing before him, fidgeting her hands like she’s anguished. It’s not Kai’s way. Jared’s churning up inside before she even speaks, and nothing she has to say makes him feel better. 

“Jared, you ever see wormbait? I mean, on a living person?”

He shakes his head. He lived pretty rough on station, but the plague never reached his lock of junkies and whores, thank the gods. And clean folks didn’t suffer, as a rule, unless they did work among the lowest of the low. “You think you might-“ He swallows dry, because that would be the worst. Kai’s more of a sister to him than Liddie, nowadays, and the plague-

She shakes her head. “Nope, no, I’m clean. It’s just I think I saw a guy with castmarks. Just a couple, but-“ 

But if there are wormcasts on his skin, he’s a walking dead man, and he’s carrying death in his blood and his spit and all. On their ship, with no way out. 

“That’s impossible,” says Jared, because it’s too scary a thought for him to respond right the first time. But even as Kai opens her mouth to answer, he knows it ain’t so. “Unless he just had the eggs in him, just a couple, when we screened on station? Shit, that might get through. And now there’ve been months for them to spread, and nobody checked in again.” It’s possible. It’s really possible. Especially on a ship full of clean folks from space camp and the farm moons, who don’t live among the slum pits. Their only medic is a nice guy from Wide Oceans, a kid belonging to friends of Jensen’s folks. He won’t have been keeping his eyes open for that hell. 

Jared wants to ask who, but he already knows. “You think Rush has the worm plague.” 

Kai nods. “I saw it, on his arm, at the party.” When Rush had been out of uniform, exposing skin that didn’t see the light too often.

“You think he knows? Maybe he’s been checked out. Could be lots of things.” If Kai’s made Jared’s heart jump like this over adolescent spots, he’s gonna bust her down to… whatever’s the lowest thing they have that smells the worst, and Jared focuses on that thought for now, because he’s trying not to think of-

“Maybe,” says Kai, and she says it gentle, “But if I’m right… Jay, he _bit_ Jensen. He could be dying too.” 

There it is.

*

It’s about the most surreal conversation Jared’s ever had with a medic, mostly because he feels like he needs one for himself with all this in his head and heart. But also because he’s doing major work on this ship without the captain’s knowledge, and it has to stay that way for now. That’s not how shipboard works. Captain knows everything, trusts everyone. But Jared’s not about to make Jensen hurt like this for no good reason, so this is how it has to be today. 

Fox is looking at him like he’s speaking old tongue, and then rummaging among his effects for his comm, to look up wormbait and all its symptoms. They work out that live worms would’ve showed up on any health scan worth its salt, and he swears that won’t have been missed. But yeah, the worms are sneaky. Can be dormant up to four months, and space would help with that, being dry and regular in temperature. So it’s possible. They look at pictures of the wormcasts, pink and bumpy all over the skin of the victims. Then Fox scrolls on too far, and Jared’s ready to hurl at the brown and eaten innards of those same folks. 

There’s no cure. Once the worms show on the skin, they’re all over inside, and in the brain, and that’s it. Once they've hatched, you can pass worms on through blood and come and shit – and spit. Yes, you can. Jared looks away from the comm, and tries hard not to put Jensen’s freckles and green eyes onto those dead men and kids. It might not happen, and he needs to hold together till then if it does.

Kai brings Rush in, and the kid doesn’t look good. Asked by Fox to show his arms, he balks, and Kai leaves, casting a sorry glance back over her shoulder at Jared. She’s sure, he thinks, and his gut starts to fall away. 

Fox is quiet, professional as he works. Jared’s impressed. He’d thought the kid nice enough when they first met, but he’s no doctor, just a practical guy with some experience mostly on horses and pigs that’ll translate to shots, wounds and fever nursing where needed, plus a heap of reference texts that he knows how to work with. But apparently the kid picked up bedside manner somewhere along the way, and he’s gentling Rush without appearing too soft. He draws blood without making anything of it, and without his hands shaking as he handles that tube full of slow rotten death. Transferring to a scope at once, he casts a look that seems almost too quick, and nods at Jared to come over. 

Jared obeys, confused. He’s no medic. “Look,” says Fox, simply, and Jared’s eye on the scope picks up what any fool could see. Squiggles among the healthy blood cells. Tiny worms, ready to grow, and take this territory for their own. “There’s no mistake.” 

Fox turns at once to his patient, and takes Rush’s hand in his own gloved ones. Jared’s not sure he could have done that, honestly. Not having seen what all’s taking over the kid.

“I’m sorry, Rush,” says the medic, “I have some very bad news.”

Rush starts his screaming before Fox gets a halfway through, and Jared hasn’t an ounce of blame in him for that. But he won’t accept it when the kid starts making to be violent with the doc, and ends up holding the kid up, feet off the ground, as Fox hurls in a shot to knock him out. 

“Might as well do a full scan, now he’s cold,” Fox adds, and Jared helps him feed Rush through the quick scanner. There are no surprises on the screen, unless you consider a human body become wormbait a surprise, and Jared no longer has that luxury.

“Well,” he says, after, and slower than he wants to. “I guess we have to call the captain.”

*

Jensen walks into the medbay looking normal as anything. Jared’s eyes run up and down familiar limbs, clear skin, beloved features. Fox draws some blood immediately, but Jensen’s so used to medchecks nothing pings him about that. When Fox sits back from the scope with a relieved, “Clear,” Jared wants to cheer. 

But that would be too much, and far too soon. 

“Captain,” says Fox, “I’m afraid we have a medical situation on board. Young Rush is wormbait.”

Jensen blinks at him a little, and says, “Shit, that’s bad news. How long will he be in treatment?” Like it’s nothing more than a passing problem. Jared was right; Jensen hasn’t hung with station scum near enough to understand this one on the first pass. 

“Jen,” he says, “There’s no treatment here. We’re here to ask you what you want us to do with him.” The choices are a quick death or a screaming one, and all that separates them is a short space of time that adds danger to all the crew. 

Jensen’s still absorbing that when Fox starts, very carefully, to tell him that he’s at risk himself. “I’m dying?” He says it fast, and calm, but his eyes are on Jared’s and his pupils have blown.

Maybe Fox can see what Jensen’s not willingly showing, because he’s very fast with what comes next. “No. No, Captain, you are _not_. It’s quite possible you weren’t infected from the bite. And even if you were, there’s no trace in your system yet. Which means we have time, and we can get you treated. Just… not here.” 

Not here. They’re four months into a voyage in the wastes of nowhere, headed for new land that barely has rain and earth yet. Jensen doesn’t have time. 

“I don’t understand what you’re suggesting, doc,” says Jensen, and thank god he can speak, because Jared’s nowhere in this. 

“We have cryo,” says Fox, simply. “I can’t treat you, but if you are infected, all we do is freeze you down the second you show up with enough eggs in your blood to ping. When we’re back in the Hub, there’s vermicide and full transfusions and you’ll barely be in hospital a month. Maybe two. Totally treatable, if we catch it in time.”

Cryo. The _Delta_ has cryo. Jared actually forgot that. Their past ships had nothing fancier than a fast freeze for crucial body parts to be kept alive enough to stitch back, a few spare transplant organs, that sort of deal. Now, they have a medbay that actual doctors could use. And it’ll give Jensen time if he needs. 

The relief is knee-weakening, till Jensen takes a shaky breath and asks for their views on what to do with Rush.

Captain’s not dying yet. But the kid is for sure.

* 

Fox doesn’t even want Rush to wake up.

“What would it achieve?” he asks, and Jared can almost see where a medic might have that opinion. Rush will wake to nothing good, whether it’s the short or long version of his impending death. Jared’s thinking of it like putting down a dog, in the kindest way. Wake him up, drug him hard, send him off softly. He doesn’t like himself that much for the comparison, but there’s something merciful in it for them all, not just Rush. 

Jensen says no.

“He’s not a soldier. He’s not _ready_ ,” is what he says. “He’s never thought he could die, and now he is, and I’m not going to take that away from him when he’s losing everything else.”

 _Not a soldier_ , Jared hears, and wonders how much of this is Demetrius coming back to Jensen now. Jensen wasn’t a soldier, and he wasn’t the only one on his crew to go down to the planet and do their best to foment a rebellion only a hotheaded fool might have believed in. Which meant he’s likely had a 19 year old non-soldier die on him unawares before today, through his own actions, and there’s no way he’s going to let Rush be the same.

So they wake him up. 

Now that Jared knows, he can see wormcast under the skin in several places, starting to break through. It comes through the skin at the end, eating away dignity and beauty and the compassion of onlookers, because who can bear to look at that? Not Jared, preferably, and that makes him weak for sure. 

“Hey, kid,” says Jensen, and it’s so, so close to how he once used to talk to Jared, back in the early days, when he made himself distant, older, wiser, bigger somehow than the real man Jared knows too well now to believe in this act. Like you could fall into him and be secure forever, because he knows everything in the verse, and has mastered it. 

It’s better now, Jared thinks, to know all the holes and fears that undermine Jensen’s façade, and to love him all the more for them, and for the honesty they bring. But for Rush, just now? He needs a superman, and the captain’s the closest thing they have.

“Cap’n?” The boy’s slurring, and Fox frowns. That’s not just sedation, Jared thinks, and wants to hurl at the thought of how the worms are multiplying fast now, eating Rush alive.

“Yeah, kid. Got yourself in a bad way, here,” says Jensen, softly. “I got no miracle to offer you. The end’s coming, you understand me?”

Rush tries to swallow, and gags a little. Jensen puts a hand under his shoulders, and draws him up so as he can breathe. “Yeah,” says the boy. “I got the worm plague. I’m sorry, captain. Didn’t know it was in me.” 

Jensen shakes his head, and doesn’t cast a glance down at the arm Rush bit, where despite Fox’s meds and decontaminants, there is still a rink of pink scarring. Jared’s looking, though, picturing it through layers of cloth, the scar he knows well already. That little wound could yet be Jensen’s killer, if they get unlucky. 

But Jensen’s not looking and thinking that, or not now, anyways. “Last choice you make, kid. You want it over quick and peaceful, today and no more future? Or do you want more days, but know they’re gonna hurt you to your soul?” 

Rush takes no time at all, but his mind is clear enough if his tongue is blurred. “Don’t want them in my eyes,” he says. “My gramma had’em there. Gotta be now. I just wanna sleep, anyways.” And he yawns. 

Jensen nods over to Fox, who quietly starts making ready with his fluids and drugs. “’Kay, kid. We got you.” He lays the boy down again, and they sit quiet, watching, while it starts to flow.

The kid cries, some, at the needles that signal the beginning of the end, but it’s not so awful as Jared might have feared, except for how he can feel Jensen’s rigid distress beside him. 

When there’s no more breath in Rush, Jensen taps his hand against the kid’s paw, and rises. “Okay. You know protocol, Fox?” 

Fox shakes his head. Disposing corpses in space is one thing. Disposing of killer diseases is another. They don’t burn anything in space. What else is- “Get a biohazard bag, get him in there. Then triple bag, and make sure the labels are outward and clear as day.” Jensen pauses. Jared tries to think back over stories of how this goes. Sometimes they space dead men in redundant older suits, he remembers, like it’s less final if they have the possibility of survival, long after they’re dead. But a bagged up body’s no good for that. Finally, Jensen says, “I guess that’ll have to do it.” He walks out of the medbay. 

Technically, Jared’s on watch, but if nobody’s called him in the last six hours while all this went down, he reckons the ship can spare him a few more hours while he sees to the captain.

*

In their cabin, Jensen pushes Jared straight down onto the bed, working a hand into his pants with insistent thoroughness. “Don’t talk about it now,” he says. “I need tonight, and then we’ll deal.”

Jared’s willing. He wants to forget about it too, if he can, and if Jensen wants to spend the night riding him hard into the bunk, arms braced in the tight space above them so he can look down at Jared, far below, expression hidden in the low cabin light and shadows… Jared’s prepared to be a part of that. He’s never going to regret an hour spent buried deep inside Jensen, not if he has ten thousand of them ahead of him. And if he doesn’t- He pushes that away.

When Jensen comes down, finally, after the third time, when Jared’s almost sore with him, and whimpering at the very thought of another go-around, they still don’t talk. Jared’s comm is on, blinking in the corner, but there’s no emergency code. Let them have this, until they don’t have it any more. 

*

Morning comes, and it isn’t a good one. Jared wakes alone, and wondering why, till a shipwide announcement starts a minute after he opens his eyes.

“Folks, I’m sorry to tell you we lost a crew member last night. Young Rush had a sickness on him that we didn’t pick up on, and he’s beyond our help now. If you’d like to join us and say a few words when we float the kid away, please join us at Airlock 2-44 in a half hour.”

Jensen’s voice sounds okay. Low and sorry, but not tense. But then, he’s never let his personal shit overtake the duties of a captain. He closes off his message with a command to all officers to join him on the bridge once the ceremony is done, but even that doesn’t seem to have panicked the crew any. They look calm enough, when Jared joins them. Smart, like putting on uniform gear to the utmost correctness might mean something to Rush. 

There’s a little – no, actually, a lot – of recoil when they realise what Rush’s coffin consists of. The biohazard bags are red-orange and not solemn. But no one’s in the airlock with it, so they can afford a little revulsion of feeling, instead of being scared for their skins. Human beings; they’re a hypocritical bunch, Jared thinks. And it’s sour, and unlike himself, which he’s blaming on too much fear and sorrow in the past day, and waking up alone.

Jensen’s saying words he’d say over any departed crew member, and then opening the floor to the other crew, and folks who believe are praying for Rush, and folks that aren’t are trying to remember enough to say a good word or two. And Jared can’t quite keep it in now, so he adds his voice. “Rush could’ve been me. I look at the kids we bring on here, to offer them a second chance when their first lives sucked so bad… and I see myself in every one of them. You folks who come from good homes, who learned a trade and worked your way here, I admire you for it. But I’m envious as hell. Because there’s too many others, like me, like Rush, that only made it here through dumb luck and charity. I’m just sorry as hell that Rush’s luck didn’t hold like mine did.”

The captain don’t like to make a show of emotion before the entire assembled crew, but that’s whose arm is around Jared now, and it’s enough to make him stop talking afore he bawls. He stands tall, but now that Jensen’s holding him, Jared can feel how he’s been shaking this whole time. He wasn’t lying. Rush could be him, and he could be worm food now. Easy. 

“Okay,” says Jensen, after a moment, and a final word from Kai for them all. “Tic, could you-“ But Tic’s young, and though he’s standing handy by the airlock, he looks at Jensen like the captain’s asking him to be a murderer. Jensen sighs, and leaves hold of Jared, walks to the lock control, and says, “Goodbye, Rush. Good luck in the stars.” 

The orange-red bags flash bright in the ship’s lighting, but their speed soon leaves the kid behind, drifting alone in the black. He was so damn scared of the Cascade, Jared thinks. But that probably doesn't bother him now.

*

Up in the bridge, Jensen drops a little of the calm, and freaks out the officers by calling a closed session. Never happened before, that Jared knows of, on an Ackles ship. But he guesses Jensen won’t want this spilling out before they have a workable plan. 

“Guys, the good news is that Rush’s sickness wasn’t infectious. But it’s likely contagious to anyone sharing blood or other body fluid with him. Which means I’m at risk, thanks to the bite, and I need you to find out if anyone else is. I don’t think he had a girl, but ask around. And if he bit anyone else, you need to tell me stat.”

There’s enough lethargy in the room that Jensen adds, “No messing. This is the worm plague, and if we don’t catch it on anyone infected, they’ll be out in space too. If we catch it in time, we have five cryo berths, to get folks back in one piece before they start getting eaten up. I already booked mine.” At that, there’s no lethargy at all. Space is never silent, not aboard a ship, but it’s quiet enough Jared can hear the engine cycle a full round before anyone moves. “It might not happen, but I’m planning that it should, and that way, we don’t get taken by surprise. So this is how it’ll go when I can’t captain no more.”

Jared listens, wondering whether Jensen slept at all last night, as contingency new orders and shifts spill out. Orders for rookie training. Reminders that Mullen is a good, trained second they can have every confidence in. Course suggestions for the home leg that Jensen wants tested and reported, because that was his plan and he’s hopeful of some other navigation windfalls coming their way if they’re smart. 

Mullen looks determined, nodding, noting, snapping off a salute when Jensen points him out as their captain in waiting. Jared hates him, then. But they need a captain, and it’s not Jared’s place at all. 

Jensen allows for questions, but eventually they all wind down, and he nods. “Thanks folks, back on shift. I need to talk with Jared now. Corp stuff.”

There are a few attempts at humorous scepticism at that line, but not many. Judging by the tragic looks a couple of the juniors cast Jared’s way, they’re picturing a romantic forever goodbye, which isn’t what Jensen intended they should take away at all. Jared fetches the Corp log and his personal manuals, and sighs heavy and put-upon. “Sure, Jen. Sure. You know how I love paperwork.” 

And that pantomime at least lightens up the atmo a little.

*

They don’t have time for romantic goodbyes. There’s work to be done. AcklesCorp has only five shareholders, and three aren’t present. Besides, Jensen’s parents’ wouldn’t be a part of this decision-making, sleeping-partner-style investors that they are. They’re only missing Wack; Jared’s horribly conscious of it though. They need experienced spacers to think this through, test it out, get their heads out of wormbait and into managing a tiny fleet.

If Ackles isn’t around, what are the rules? Who’s in command? How do the shareholders get their say, if so be there’s one aboard who isn’t captaining? Who liaises with the commercial carriage clients? How to go on, if the captain doesn’t. Jared’ll have Jensen’s shares if he dies, that much has always been settled, but that doesn’t resolve the who and the how for the thousand things Jensen’s been running since they set up alone. This whole little Corp is Jensen’s, and that never was sustainable, but they’d been thinking to do this work at leisure, after this voyage, with Wack at their sides and the _Argentina_ ready to fly without any of them aboard, first corp voyage where that would be true. Not now, with Jensen weeks, days, hours from death or freezing, in a cabin aboard a ship alive with rumour. 

It goes hard, and Jared’s sure they’re missing stuff. He hopes it's nothing they'll regret, if it comes to relying on paperwork to save their skins.

Eventually, Fox interrupts, with good news (nobody known as a likely Rush contact but Jensen) and unwelcome reminders (a blood test for Jensen). But his worm load is still undetectable, and that’s good. Maybe this day’s work will be unneeded. Maybe he’s free of the plague, and they can get the hell out to Mnemosyne as fast as ever, come home, get paid, get laid, be lovers forever. 

*

Or not. It’s eleven days till Jensen knocks at their door, in a way he has never, ever done. He’s sheet-white, purple around the mouth, and Jared near hollers out, fearing he’s caught something else they’d never suspected.

But no. That’s how Jensen looks scared to his bones. It's just Jared never has seen that before. 

“Fox gave me two hours,” he says. “And then…” Then it’s a long sleep and trusting Jared and the guys to get him home and treated and alive again at the other end. 

Jensen’s an organising kind of man, so ninety minutes or more of his two hours are spent with the crew, with the officers, with Mullen above all. Time taken to set their whole future on a steady course, for if they don’t make it back to the Hub, it’s not only Jensen that has no future. 

It leaves near to no time for Jared, and that smarts. It means saying goodbyes in the medbay, Fox clattering about in the background with cryoprep that can’t wait, because Jensen’s life depends on it. Jared’s eyeing him up and down, aware he’s staring, knowing there’s nothing to see yet, and he better hope there never is, or he’ll be losing Jensen forever, not just for this.

“Can I-“ he holds out his arms, because fuck it, he needs this, junior officers in the area notwithstanding, and Jensen hesitates, but comes in the end. 

He’s rigid in Jared’s hold. “Jay, don’t. It’ll be okay. It’s just a break.” It’s a longer break in togetherness than they’ve had in eight years, and there’s no hardwired guarantee that it’ll end happy, and Jared’s so close to saying that, when Jensen murmurs, “Don’t tell them I’m frightened. Please?” And that part is for Jared’s ears only. 

Captain can’t be anything but omnipotent, that’s how it works on shipboard. All powerful, all confident, all knowing. Jensen relies on his mystique to drag crews through the black in impossible routes that take risks nobody else ever tried and with no authority but himself and his word. He has his old rep dragging around with him, though Demetrius has lost some of its power nowadays; Jensen’s notoriety now is at least as much about his nav exploits as being the Destroyer. But none of that is automatic. None of that is backed by a bigger, faceless, money-pot Corp now. It’s just Jensen. Which means captain’s not just a human being, and he can’t afford to fold up crying now. 

He doesn’t. Fox comes over to start prep, and Jensen gives Jared one light kiss, no deadly fluids exchanged, which is something even a captain’s entitled to apparently, and then he walks steady over to the cube, and it begins. 

“Keep talking,” says Fox. “It’ll help me to calibrate.”

Jensen swallows hard, and Jared thinks fast. This can’t be talking Jensen to sleep, not the way they did for Rush. And he can’t be touching, while Jensen’s body temp plummets below ice-cold. This needs to be captain all the way, in case Fox blabs, or one of the juniors. “What’s next?” he says. “You’re gonna sleep for seven months, minimum, you be dreaming about the next thing. We gonna go after a long one next? I’d like that. ‘Nother two-three years in the black, you and me? Like when we first met?”

Which gives the captain a focus, and he runs his mouth through four options for a new voyage, balancing pro and con, profit versus pioneering. Fast first and then slower and slower as the freeze takes a hold. “Cold, Jay,” he murmurs, and Fox tips Jared a nod he’d requested, when Jensen’s going out fast.

“Hey, Jen, you ever think this through? When you wake up, you don’t get to call me kid again. I’m gonna catch you up, old man. When you wake, I’ll be near thirty and you won’t be a day older.”

“Love you, kid,” says Jensen, and it’s slurred hard now, but Jared manages to laugh while Jensen can still hear. 

And then, it’s done. No more awareness behind those closed lids. Fox puts a hand on Jared’s forearm, just for a second, but Jared knows now why Jensen wasn’t touching and emoting before. He can’t afford it. He may not be the captain, but he’s the Corp now. He stays to watch the transfer from freezing booth to long term cryo suspension cube. It’s not too much like a coffin, being designed to be large, allowing the body to be repositioned regularly, not allowing even solid-frozen blood to pool. But they’re putting his lover in a box, still and cold and unaware, and it feels like the worst day they’ve spent together. 

But. Life goes on, or they're all gone, and Jared can't sit mourning a man who isn't even dead yet. Not for long, anyways. 

After, he heads up to the bridge. “Mullen, sir, you’re up now. Captain Ackles hands over command.” And he passes Mullen the seal, the comm link Jensen has signed over to Mullen’s codes now. Pats him on the shoulder, and adds, “We have every confidence in you.” It sounds like a falsity, coming from his mouth, but he needs to remind Mullen there’s a Corp here, and it’s still represented on the ship. Jared has no plans to pull rank, because that’s not in all those procedures he and Jensen have been setting down, and never will be. Captain’s captain, and no backseat officering can be endured. But… well. Jared’s not about to let Mullen forget who he is. Who he represents. Jensen’s more than an ice cube in store. He has to be.


	3. Chapter 3

Six weeks later, they’re not so far off arriving at their landing spot on Euterpe, new terraformed planet in the Mnemosyne cluster. And the crew is boiling up and ready to blow.

In honest truth, Jared’s not certain that Mullen is doing such a bad job, so much as he’s not Jensen and every damn one of them wishes that he were. He’s stiffer, and less humorous, more cautious, all of that, but it’s not gross change, it’s these little niggles that are building up till the crew can’t hardly stand it. Jared too. He’s never been in space without Jensen. He never knew it could be lonely.

Jared’s lost the captain’s cabin, and that’s only right, but he did a straight switch with Mullen and Jericho swore it was a-okay with him, and he was happy sticking with third officer’s bunk. Which means Jared has a little space, because they do decently by second officers on this ship. Less than they’ve been used to, but more than Jared had when he first rookied on the Imp. And more than he needs now he’s alone in here. 

Except he’s not alone. All kinds of crewmen drop by, casual like, but all of them with a similar story. Mullen’s no good. Mullen’s driving me crazy. Mullen asked the most stupid-ass thing, Mullen spoke to me like Jensen never-

He cuts them off, mostly, at least once they’ve whined the worst of whatever it is away. Protocol is clear. And Jared’s never captained a thing, never even seconded to Jensen, so he’s no man to be second-guessing the cap. But it all builds, till the day he’s in his rack with Nix and Mag entwined, and Nix says, idle-seeming, “Jare- What _are_ you gonna do about Mullen?”

Like it’s his call. 

He says nothing, but that little line sticks with him. It bubbles up more, and harder, the closer they get in to Mnemosyne’s inhabited worlds. They have some commissioned gear to deliver, per contract, but over half is now AcklesCorp-owned, and that means trading. First time Jared hears Mullen take the price he’s offered, he bites his tongue. It’s a small contract, and maybe Mullen’s baiting a hook. Second time, it’s a bigger contract, and by the look on Jericho’s face, that’s not only the second time it’s happened. Mullen’s pissing away their advantage.

He asks young Mabh to join him, and knocks on Mullen’s door. “Can we talk about buying? We need to agree terms before we land.”

Mabh’s a bright kid, full of ideas, and she pitches a bunch of them straight off. Good. Let it not be Jared pulling rank there. Mullen listens with a deepening frown. “I’m not sure that’s quite the way we’ll be taking things.” 

Except why bring Mabh, who barely knows one end of the ship from the other, but has studied Corp gaming for her life, if you’re not planning to use her? That's what Jensen's plan was. Jared’s gut twinges hard. What’s Mullen trying to pull? 

It turns out he’s not trying to pull anything. He just pretty much gave away their merchandise – all of it - and they don’t have 60% of the budget Mabh’s strategies demand. Jared’s watching, mouth open, as Mabh shakes her disbelieving head. Yeah. He really is hearing this.

Mullen doesn’t realise, Jared thinks, at the start. He keeps giving reasons, which are only partly excuses, for how this didn’t net them the sums they had in mind. Their outbound voyage was indeed slower than planned, with all the glitches they had to slow for. They did miss being first in this cargo run. But also Mullen absolutely did take the first offer, pretty much every time, deciding that their position was hopeless. 

“So…” Mabh says after a while. “You never negotiated before?” 

“Sure, I did,” and Mullen’s actually _offended_ at that. “I told Captain Ackles all about my experience, and he was happy with my approach.” Which must be true, to a degree, because there’s nothing in Jensen’s instructions to suggest he thought Mullen would be a disaster. But the more they talk, the more evident it is that Mullen’s only ever negotiated for prime Corps, and never for a small, fragile startup. And he has no idea of the prices they were planning for. And the stiff-necked bastard never thought to ask.

Jared’s frantically calculating in his head while this goes on. They’re paid up for delivery for their contracted work, which covers fuel and running, so long as they make it back in reasonable time. They’ll buy something half decent to sell on the way back, and that’ll cover wages. Mostly. His and Jensen's fees will be a dead loss, but that’s okay. They won’t lose money apart from their own costs, and that’s minor. But this journey’s going to be nothing more than break even. Maybe a little less than. And without a single disaster to give them a reason. Their baby Corp is struggling now. Unless Wack’s done something extra-good, they’ll not be running the _Argentina_ for a while. 

And it’s on his watch. Jared trusted the captain, and the captain did this. 

He draws in a deep breath, and says, “Captain Mullen, on behalf of AcklesCorp, I thank you for your service to date. We’re looking forward to working with you on the return journey. But we’ll take it from here, regarding negotiations. Please pilot us in to Euterpe, and take a deserved leave.”

And then he turns to Mabh and says, “You okay to lead from here? I got your back.” She blinks _hard_ , because there’s book learning and then there’s taking the lead on your first ever neg run unsupported. But then she nods. 

“I’m gonna go with mineral rights, mostly, if you’re happy. Reckon we want to run light, coming home, and if we ship too much raw ore, we’ll wallow.” She’s got it. She’s thinking about money and speed, and money and speed’s what all this is about, underneath. Seems like Mullen don’t understand that much. He’s all about the voyage. 

“Thanks, Mabh. Go get planning,” Jared dismisses her. And turns to Mullen. “I’m sorry. I needed someone else’s perspective on that, but she won’t spread the word, you know.” Mullen’s pale in the face but pink around ears and eyes. “You’re a great nav pilot-“ and that’s a crock, he's no more than competent, but Jared needs this guy to not desert them. Probably needs him, anyway, assuming he's not about to fuck up any more. Needs AcklesCorp not to get a rep for stabbing contract captains in the back, for absolutely sure. “-but we need to negotiate hardball, here. Take a break, get your head together, and take us home safe, okay?”

*

Mabh doesn’t appear to blab her mouth over what occurred, but inevitably there are rumours over what went down, as Mullen plots a course to Euterpe and basically quits his post from then. 

Euterpe’s raw-new. Jared knew it in theory, but he’d almost forgotten. Was almost into port routine, who wants shore leave, who wants to hide aboard from Corp security. But there’s nothing out there, nearly. A few settlers. A couple bars and brothels, because of course there’s money to be made off men in the deep. But no cities, no buildings beyond shacks. They barely have water and soil out there. Prices are high. The crew is pissed. 

Jared takes a long walk, the day before they leave. Mabh’s done wonders, to the point where break even looks better than likely, and profit a faint hope. He hasn’t messed up so very bad. Maybe. Or at least he’s salvaged.

He looks out through the thin atmo inside the habitation domes. This isn’t such a bad place. Give it a decade, give it two, and it’ll be green and liveable. They’ve talked, sometimes, about investing in land in the future. Neither Jensen nor Jared dreams of owning great fleets, splitting themselves across forty vessels. But some production, maybe farms, their own ships to ensure viability and transport. Even some mining, maybe, though Jensen makes a sour face whenever he mentions that’s a good bet. Something that’s theirs. 

Jared has been on worlds, now. Planets and moons are not new to him. And yet they are, in deep, alien places to any kid brought up on station. A planet this new and raw feels even more alien. Guys here barely have comms, barely have tech. It’s all animal and mineral, plants an aspiration. He doesn’t feel like this part of their dream’s coming true any time soon. That’s something else he has to confess to Jensen, when he wakes up. It’s turning out a damned long list. 

His comm crackles, faintly. It’s Nix, static all over, and distress on her face. “---quickly, Jared, Jericho’s down--- bar--- town.” 

It’s one of the rare times that it’s helpful that Euterpe’s basically an uninhabited pile of dust. Jared finds them at the third bar he checks. There was only one more option. He’s almost laughing at that, under the worry at whatever it is, till he finds Jericho lying in a pool of blood, coughing and frothing at the mouth. 

Jared stops laughing pretty fucking quick. 

Nix is hurt too, blood all down her face, but she’s talking and has commed for Fox, Dil, anyone, while Mag dabs at her and talks soothing in her ear. There’s a bunch of angry ‘Terpe folks in the bar, but they’re holding back, likely shocked at Jericho’s wounds and sated their bloodlust for now. Plus, Jared has a broken chair in one hand and a knife in the other, and when he catches his own eye in the bar mirror, he looks pretty damned wild. He’d avoid himself, given the choice. But he’s done with this shit. Too much gone wrong. 

Half the crew turns out to save them. Mullen isn’t one of them. 

*

They get off world pretty quick after that, though Mabh and Jared makes one last pass through, small mop-up deals with outer moons that net them more than Jared would have bet on (apparently that was Mabh’s big strategy, if she’d had more cash to play with, and he’s grateful she bothered to give it a shot, after they let her down so bad). So it’s not so bad, maybe. 

They’re down a second officer while Jericho heals up, and Jared’s doubling up duty, they being long on keen rookies and short on guys with enough experience to nav plot their way out of the mess of comet activity near Mnemosyne. He doesn’t have time to breathe, let alone fret, till they’re out in the black. 

He misses Jensen _fierce_ , though. He feels so far away, though he’s with them in body. Once they’re out in the black, Jared wanders down to medbay in a sentimental mood. He’s surprised to find Mag there. 

She’s standing by Jensen’s cube, talking quietly. “Oh, hey Jared!” She smiles, and it’s a good one. “I came to keep the captain company, seeing as you’re busy and all.” 

It’s a nice thought, and if it catches Jared raw, that’s really his own fault, right? He hasn’t come often, mostly because Jensen asked him not to, and partly because seeing your lover turned into a purpled popsicle ain’t exactly the most comforting sight. He says, too fast, “He can’t hear you, you know? Time’s not passing for him.” _I’m not neglecting him. You don’t have to pick up my slack._

She nods, and brushes his shoulder as she turns to leave. Tactful lady. “I know. But we miss him, you know?”

Yeah. I know. You knew him a few months; I’ve had him as my everything for near on nine years now. It’s petty, but Jared asks Fox after that to limit visitors to Jensen’s cube. It’s not fair to have him so vulnerable there, on view to whoever comes by. And, you know, he’s helpless. Accidents can happen, with rough kids horseplaying on shipboard. Jared wants no hint of risk to the captain. To _Jensen,_ who’s more to him than a captain, and he’s damned tired of putting the ship first, self second, in all of his fears. 

He’s struggling, he knows. Missing Jensen bad and starting to lose the sure security of their years together. Maybe Jensen’s always protected him a little, and he never noticed it till now, when there’s no protection for him at all. 

*

Voyage out was filled with niggling issues. Trade was a near disaster redeemed only by Mabh’s tenacity. And now the homeward leg is bidding fair to be worse than both. Glitches, again. Slow, again. Losing ground, again and again. Jared’s gloom is predictable, and it’s only when he takes a breath, when they’re out of Mnemosyne’s messy system and into the true, empty black, that he puts it all together. Then wishes he’d never seen so clear.

He comes upon Mabh, Jericho, Dil, Mag, even quiet Fae, spitting tacks over their shared tales of Mullen’s various rudeness, incompetence, personal foibles, you name it. He’s with Nix, and she bats not an eyelid. This isn’t new. This is the common talk among the crew. Jared’s ship is run by a fool. This time in a trip, you'd expect them to be sweet-stoned and bored to dying point. Instead, there's sharp liquor in the air, and no sweetness at all. 

They’re all looking at Jared. _What’re you gonna do about Mullen?_ The question he's been asked before, repeatedly, and it's rumbling up yet again. He knows what protocol is, and it’s the same as for these guys. Zip it, suck it up, sign on another ship next time, don’t break the chain of command. He has no standing as a shareholder. Can’t bring business into shipboard running, or captains are undermined. Can’t undermine the guys that have to be the barrier between life and death in a thousand tiny decisions either way. 

That’s what the books say. That’s what Jensen said, and Jared agreed, and they wrote in the company manual that was almost the last thing Jensen did. 

But here they are, wallowing home slower than they should, especially given Mabh’s careful purchase of lighter stock for just this eventuality. They’re burning hot on fuel – and believe it that Jared’s checked that one out hard, after Nate and the _Lucifer_ , but it’s all there in the records. Mullen’s a cautious guy, and he’s running hotter than he needs by a mile, just to be sure. And every officer who questions him is shut down fast. 

Today’s fury, and Jared can’t blame a single one of the officers for their outrage, is how Mullen’s decided not to try Jensen’s alternate routeplan home. They’re going the tried way, the slow way, the way that’ll make them not a dollar in exploration funds. That’s not Jensen’s order, but Jensen’s _not the captain_ no more. 

“It’s Mullen’s word,” says Jared, tiredly. “Can’t go against the captain.”

“But it’s killing us,” says Nix, all hot-blooded and angry for Jensen’s plans. Jared knows how she feels, and he’s starting to simmer himself. 

“Now, Nix,” says Mag, softer and sweeter always, “Can’t blame Jared for not stepping up. Not his fault we got ourselves a chickenshit captain.” Except it kind of is, and they all know it. Jared was with Jensen when they checked out Mullen, and they thought he looked all right. Maybe never truly thought what he’d be like with an independent command, though. Maybe too soft, knowing they’d no chance of getting a second like Wack, or perfectly to Jensen’s style this time, so willing to take a conventional guy. But he seemed okay. Solid, even. It’s that thought that really starts Jared’s mind working. Because Mullen’s an annoying ass, but he’s not a coward. So why….

Mag’s continuing, a drip, drip of reproach. “It’s not like this voyage hasn’t sucked hard in all kinds of ways. Changing the captain wouldn’t fix all that.”

 _Changing the captain._ There’s a shorter word for that, and it’s mutiny. Jared could do it, of course he could. His own damn Corp won’t see him keelhauled for it. But Jensen and Wack… they wouldn’t do it, he knows. They hold hard to space values. Jared never went to space camp, but-

No. Fuck it. There’s no _but_. He won’t be marching into the bridge with a stunner and relieving Mullen of the remainder of his captainly term. He’s embarrassed the man already, over trade, and he’s not doing a bad job still. Trying hard, maybe. Even though everything's against him. Every single damn thing seems to be working against him, don't it? Jared feels Jensen's whisper in his head. _That's a *damn* consistent picture, there, Jay. Wonder how that came to be?_

Jared feels the eyes of his crewmates burning holes in his shoulder blades as he heads up to the bridge. Whatever was on his face, though, it won’t have been mutiny. That’s not where his head is at right now.

*

“Mullen? Can we meet when you get off?” 

Mullen nods, pale and- is he scared? Is he scared of Jared? Does he smell mutiny in the recirc? Jared waves a hand. “Thanks. I’ll come to your cabin after watch?”

He’s greeted there by the captain on defensive. “I’m doing my best, Jared,” he says.

“I think you are,” is what Jared says, and it’s very slow. “Any special reason why you’re not taking Jensen’s route? I know you have the know-how. You know Jer, me, a couple of the juniors, we can all back up, and Jensen’s set it all out clear enough, right?” He’s hoping, right now, that he’s wrong. That Mullen really is chicken-shit scared. That Jared can just talk him through, set a second nav watch for the exploration part, and fulfil his unspoken promise to not let Jensen down. 

Mullen shakes his head. “It’s too risky.” His mouth is tight, like he’s biting back something. And then Jared’s sure.

“You reckon you can’t trust us,” he says. 

Mullen looks him in the eye. “You, I trust. Your friends? No. We have a traitor among us, Mr Padalecki. And I’m the only one that’s noticed it.”

 _Mister Padalecki_. Mullen’s talking Corp now. Maybe he should have done it a long while back, or maybe he’s been solidifying suspicions too, and just came out ahead of Jared a little. But here they are, and it’s in the open. Jared tries to suppress a hysteria bubble. _Mullen, I’m a station whore with nine years in the black, half of it as a rookie, all of it on my lover’s call. You don’t owe me any respect at all, and you know it. You don’t owe me a ‘Mister’._

“Thank you, Captain Mullen,” says Jared instead, and it’s a faint little sound. He’s aping Jensen, acting out how he thinks a superior officer should sound, how a Corp should act. He’s making it up out of cobwebs and nothingness, of course, but if he pretends and Mullen pretends, maybe between them they can make this into what it’s mimicking. “Please, lay out your suspicions. I’ll hear them on behalf of AcklesCorp.” 

Mullen starts, “Some of it’s true bad luck, you know. The storm in the Cascade, that happens often enough, and we were in the wrong spot when it started. I don’t believe there’s anything there. And as for Captain Ackles and that poor kid Rush… well. That’s something I’ve never heard of happening before, but it seemed natural enough.” Jared nods. That’s fair. “But the system problems, Mr Padalecki. There are far, far too many for a new ship that’s well maintained. Every one of them is not dangerous, not if it’s caught in time, which they have been because the crew is a good one. But if the crew is a good one, why are there so many incidents? Every one of them has been slowing us down, just a little more.”

He pauses. “I was already fretting over it when the boy took sick, but those weeks, there was so much else on our minds, I let it slip. And then, after Captain Ackles-“ He never does call him Jensen. It’s bugged Jared till now. Now, he thinks it’s this man’s aim to be respectful by it. To put people at their ease by showing he knows what their place is. Not Jensen’s way, for sure, but that don’t make it wrong. “-Well, we were all discombobulated, and I admit I lost my way. But in the system, I didn’t make those trades alone. I took advice, listened out, and too many people were saying we were sunk, just let go the goods at any price. Which I did, till you got Mabh to show me better. On Euterpe, there was that bar fight, and we’d been warned not to head to that place because the landlord was off Demetrius-“ Jared twitches. He missed that part, but it fits. “So we lost a good navigator just when we needed him, to get a good lead off planet. And back on shipboard, more glitches. This past week, we’ve had loading gear burn out, and two pumps need re-cycling which means running one down for a month. It won’t kill us, but it’ll slow us, again. And I’m not sure I know we can come through an untested route with an enemy on board. Which means there’s even more talk, and I reckon you know someone’s talking you up as a future captain, by force if need be.”

 _Enemy_. That’s a bad word for a crewman, and a worse one out in the black. “You think it’s a killing matter?” 

“Doubtful,” says Mullen. “I had it pegged as competition. Big Corps don’t like feisty new ones. Specially feisty new ones that get the best pilots begging to come aboard.” He makes a face, self-deprecating, and Jared remembers that this man was almost funny when they first met him. Maybe he’s been struggling with his new command, and just needed a little more help to slacken off. Which nobody stepped up to give. “Also, if there’s an enemy Corp agent aboard, your usual Corp will try to get them out alive, or they struggle to recruit more. But you know space. One wrong move-“ 

Which is true, as anyone who knows anything about space can tell you. “Yeah. You know who it is?” Jared tries to be light about that, because whoever it is, it ain’t Mullen’s fault. 

But the captain’s shaking his head. “Officer, I reckon. More likely on the crew side than the nav, given most of our problems have been with the ship itself. Logically, that means it should be you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not looking to kill yourself and your Corp just now. So…”

“So, Nix.” Jared’s mouth sours even as he says it. But nobody else has quite that reach in the crew. She’s grip, but she’s into everything. A favourite with the officers. Jensen would trust her with anything, he knows, but she’s been off ship a long time now. Six years is plenty to get picked up by another Corp, right?

“Not necessarily,” says Mullen. “I don’t know which of them.”

*

It’s been a long time since Jared saw a shipboard court for anything more than drunken carelessness and slugging each other stupid at an inconvenient hour for ship’s running. He’s flashing back hard to that last one. To Nate. To Jensen’s face after they carried out the execution. To how Jared comforted him, that first time he got up inside and Jensen struggled so sweetly hard to take him, then rode him till they both couldn't take no more. To the way the ship felt after. Bad, but cleaner. 

None of that’s here, now. They don’t know if it’s Nix, or Mag, or maybe even both, or others drawn in to a wider conspiracy. There’s no smoking gun, like Jared’s near death was last time. There’s no clarity. 

There’s no _Jensen_. Just Mullen and Jared, muddling through, able to trust only each other, and still not liking each other more than a half, for all that. Commissioning a jury, all they can do is hope they’re getting a fair selection, and that whatever poison’s being dripped, it’s not reached more than half of the random group they empanel. Officially, nobody is on trial at the start, it's just a formal enquiry. But the more evidence they pile up (and when you go looking, there’s evidence of tampering all over), the more people start casting looks at Mag, the more Nix gets thin-lipped and loses her joyful swirl. It’s clear where this is leading, but it ain’t quick.

More, they’re putting strain on the nav guys, because Jared talked Mullen into switching to the unplotted route after all. By his reckoning, now they know there’s an enemy, she or they likely won’t be acting up. Especially if they’re watched, which they largely are. Security tightens everywhere. Nobody gets into medbay without a bleeding wound. Nobody gets into cryo at all. 

Nix asks to testify, to put herself on the stand and take her chances. Maybe it’s a ploy, but Jared doesn’t think so once she starts to speak. Seems like he’s not the only one who’s been putting together half-heard talk. He doesn’t like her more for what she lays out – not sure he could do the same if he’d believed Jensen guilty like this – but maybe Nix’s loyalty isn’t just to Mag.

For sure, when she says, “Mag talked to me about cryo,” Jared feels his skin crawl. “How dangerous it is. How if there’s a power cut, you lose them. If there’s a glitch, even, there can be brain damage. I told her there were three generators on that one cube, which she knew of course, and she said, ‘But still, I’m a little worried for the captain.’” Nix stands herself upright, and says, “I probably should have known, then. Right?”

Jared’s face probably shows just how he’s feeling now. Mostly grateful that he put that petty barrier on cryo access, so Mag couldn’t directly touch the isolated cryo power sources, unless she could have faked up an electrical need to do so, which apparently she hadn’t had a chance. Sabotage might not mostly be a killing matter in this case, but if a Corp wanted AcklesCorp taken out before it could grow, taking out Ackles himself discreetly was a pretty fine way to do it. 

Nix repeats, “I should have known.” It’s more definite this time, and she’s softer with the knowledge, and that’s when Jared for one knows just who is the villain here. 

Mag denies every word, sadly outraged, sorrowfully mis-accused. This too is different from Nate. The jury’s unsure. Jared watches Mullen preside, and feels a little better; this guy _is_ sure, and he’s showing it, and it’s helping. But it’s still a tough one for them all. Jury takes days to decide. Mag sits, long black hair tumbling around her, the picture of grace. Jared wants her to be true. But the fact is, they’ve had nary a ‘glitch’ since this process started. Even after an electrical disturbance out of the black the first day they moved into Jensen’s untried way, not one system misfired. And the pumps that needed re-cycling are working sweet and smooth. Which means Jared’s pretty sure. And in the end the jury agrees, though with stutters and lowered eyes aplenty. 

AcklesCorp has a policy on traitors and ship-endangerers. One of those things they wrote out in those hectic days before Jensen froze, with their minds on Nate and the past, on clarity and certainty. Let them go into the black. He (and it was he in their minds, more fool they) chose to put a shipful of comrades in danger, he suffers the simple same. But Jared doesn’t think it’s only Mag’s gender that’s making him doubtful. He’s not a killing man. Never has been. Doesn’t think Mullen is either. And this traitor was commercial, was Corp, was about slowing and bankrupting, they believe. The proof is sufficient, but it's not absolute. Jared never even told the jury about Mag hanging about Jensen’s cube. It could have been friendly. Nothing else she’s done says she’s a killer. But he can’t see her free on the ship, either.

Mullen awaits. “Jury members, AcklesCorp thanks you for your service.” He’s pompous, and off-note again. The crew shifts, sympathies moving as Jared watches. If Mullen says she’s to be spaced, Jared’s not entirely certain the crew will take it. Unless on Jared’s say-so, and that’s something that he’d give their entire projected take from this voyage not to have be the case. 

But Mullen surprises him. “I don’t want to be sharing air with someone who isn’t a part of this crew. That’s not what space should be about. But we have the means to hand to solve that. Please take her down to cryo. She can be an unperson awhile, and then crawl off to her masters when she wakes.” It’s not a kindly speech, not at all. But the anger under it is what surprises Jared. It’s a truth-ring that the crew hears and notes. _You mess with my ship, you mess with my crew, I don’t want to think of you no more_. It’s captainly. And the sentence ain’t kind, but it’s merciful by the book. Mood shifts again.

Lastly, Mullen turns toward Nix. “I think it’s pretty clear we weren’t without our suspicions of you, Miz Dean-“ and who even knew Nix had a last name, Jared thinks, passingly amused. It’ll be in the records, but even he couldn’t have called it to mind without notice. Mullen’s an ass about protocol, and always will be. But he’s saying right things now. “-and I for one am glad that this process of trial has shown that you were not a part of this. I’m sorry about your lover. Are you all right?” Right things, awkward things. Things maybe that might have been said private in some cases. But Nix is grateful, a little damp eyed and nodding hard.

“Just sorry I vouched for her,” is all she says, but they’re all sorry about that. Jared won’t be taking on friends of friends in future, or not without a hard look at backgrounds. That’s a loss for the Corp, for sure, but it’s a lesson needed learning too. 

“C’m on,” he says in return, direct to Nix. “Let’s go to the bridge after.” Don’t neither of them have regular business there nowadays, and it’s been a long time since they were there together. Since Jensen, probably. But Jared has a mind to something. Last time there was a trial, the captain needed comforting bad. Jared’s not intending anything directly comparable, and he highly doubts Nix is in the mood for fucking Mullen into the bridge. But they take a detour by Jared’s cabin, and are waiting when Mullen comes on deck a half hour later. 

He looks tired as hell, rubbing his eyes, and his usual straightening up at the sight of juniors isn’t so snappy and smart as usual. “Help you?” he says, though, helpful and polite, because he’s an officer dammit. Jared never wants to be that guy, but when you get your eye in to what he’s achieving, he’s not a bad man. 

“Nope,” says Nix. “Just thought you might need liquor as bad as we do.” She waves the good stuff. It’s half empty, and a decent signal this isn’t an invitation to outright debauch. Jared’s not even sure Mullen’s a drinker, but this seems like the time to find out. 

And yeah, the captain sighs and sags a little, and reaches out for the shot glass coming his way. “Hell, yes I could.” He necks a shot, eyes closed. “Damn. That’s good.”

Nix waits a moment and says, “She okay?”

“Yeah. She took it quietly, I’m glad to say. Still denying it all, but…” Mullen looks hard at his empty glass, and Jared fills it fast. “I’m sure, you know. We did the right thing. But I hate that part of captaining.” 

He turns his head then, belatedly, looking for who might be in earshot, but Jared already checked, and there’s no more than Jericho nearby. Couple of the juniors in the analysis booth, but they’re head down and studying hard, as well they might. This homeward route is a risk with this crew, and it’s good to see them working on it. 

Jared jerks his head at the rookies. “Not that part, though, right?”

“Nope,” says Mullen, two shots in and looser than Jared’s ever seen him. “New stars, new officers, new worlds… that part’s all good.”

*


	4. Chapter 4

Jensen’s homebound route is not all gravy, and gains them a bare two weeks, but they return to a Hub buzzing with the news that AcklesCorp’s done it again. Jared and Mabh take five orders for their plots before they make stationfall, and they’re squarely in profit on the trip now. Not third time lucky, for sure, but the fourth eventually turned out good enough that a fifth time is a definite. 

Jared saw more new stars this time. Lots of them. He’s talking to Jensen, the night before they berth; tonight, he can’t stay away any longer. He’s twitchy as hell, because tomorrow they go to a real hospital, and talk with the docs there, and get a time and a cost roughed out for how long it’ll be before he has Jensen back and healthy. Not to mention, he has to pay off for defrosting Mag, and spread the word about her loyalties round station before she gets taken on by another Corp that’ll suffer her sabotage. That’s not Mullen’s task. Mullen’s nearly done. Looking about for another job, of course, and Jared feels bad that there’s no big market for this guy. He’s done okay. Jared might even consider him for the _Argentina_ , if he can wait long enough for that job, but he’s not about to sign up crew without Jensen or Wack’s say-so. _Delta_ will be six months in refit, minimum, and Wack won’t be back with the _Impala_ for upwards of that time, so AcklesCorp sounds to be station-bound a while. 

He calls Liddie, which goes about as well as you’d expect. She's a proud mom now, covered in puke and smiling through near-closed exhausted eyes. He commed the Ackles farm a while back, as soon as they were in range, so at least they’re aware of Jensen’s state. And so he has a place to go - _they_ have a place to go - to hole up waiting once Jensen’s out of the hands of the medics. A few months on Green Acres sounds not too shabby just about now. But Jared’s still thinking of the stars.

“We found a new nebula, Jen,” he says. “Not in Corp space, neither, so we’re naming it Ackles for you. Got a bunch of stars to name. Advertising potential, didn’t you say? Get our name out there, get us on the map.” They’ll be wiped off and renamed if the Corp goes under, sure, but for now, it’s a satisfaction to imagine themselves imprinted on the heavens. “I’m gonna take you out there, someday. Show you what you led us to. Green gas giants as far as you could see, and a core that’ll give neptunium if our samples tell true. They glow right enough when the dark’s on them. You should have seen it, love. I promise you will.” 

*

Jared’s been sick enough plenty of times in his life, but there’s never been money for hospitals. This is an alien place when he steps in, and his hackles are all over prickling from the moment he’s inside. It’s supposed to be a truce place, since all Corps need medical help at times, but Jared’s wondering what all advantage they’re going to be taking. Everyone does. It’s almost a relief when he gets the paperwork for Mag and realises the advantage is mostly about hard cash. That, they have. 

Jensen’s doctor listens impatiently to Jared’s reeling off of the situation, nodding hard, “Fine, fine, egg count barely detectable, that’s no trouble. Take a while, mind, and we won’t fast-wake him from cryo to give us time to be sure his tissue is all clear. Call it a month? It’ll cost more, but-”

It’s that simple. Jared thinks back to Fox’s face on the _Delta_ talking about Rush and his eaten-away body, and how this could have been the kid if they’d spotted sooner, acted faster. Never flying again without cryo, he resolves. Freeze them, bring them home, make them someone else’s problem. Don’t lose people into the black no more. He makes a mental note to amend the protocols. He’s a shareholder, tiny though he be. He’s going to fight for that one. And he has a feeling Jensen will be sympathetic.

*

When Jensen’s eyes open, Jared’s expecting disorientation. Coming out of sleep, coming back to life, to time, to himself. What actually happens is the captain’s eyes snap open and he says, firm and anguished, “They have made worms' meat of me.” 

Which shakes Jared something bad. He recognises the words from schooling. Older than the old speak. It’s something Jensen must have caught onto at space camp, or his long lone watches in the black when he’d read up on anything to hand, the older the better, for less likely to tweak at Jensen’s raw edges in his exile years. So much is understandable. But the desolation of it, that this is what Jensen went into the cold thinking, that’s bad. 

“No, Jen,” he says, and his voice comes out croaky and raw, “Not yet, anyways. You’re back, and you’re clean and whole. I promise. We got you back.”

Jensen locks eyes with him, and tries to move a hand to cover Jared’s. But here, more to Jared’s expectation, he’s defeated by wasted muscle and wobbling frailty. There’s a way to go before he’ll stride out the proud captain, looks like. But that’s all about time, exercise and good food, and Jared has a plan for that. 

“Thank you,” says Jensen, and Jared ducks down to kiss him. Quick, though, on a number of counts: the patient’s strength, the godawful taste of a man after eight months’ deep freeze, and- “Mom?” Jensen’s looking over Jared’s shoulder. “What’re you doing here?”

Ma Ackles rolls her eyes, and heaves herself off the solid discomfort of the hospital chair to walk over to Jensen’s bed. “Here to check on our investments, of course,” she says, and god help her conscience for the moment when Jensen’s expression says that’s plausible. A whole lot of time has gone by, but he’ll never wholly forget those betrayed years. Her voice goes softer, as the joke falls flat. “Where else am I gonna be, son? Got to see you out of trouble this time. And we’re bringing you home awhile to feed you up, no arguments. You’re both paler than winter butter, and we got the remedy on Green Acres.” She smoothes Jensen’s hair a little, a brief loving touch that makes him close his eyes. “Though don’t get to be used to this, you hear me? I got better things to do than racketing about the galaxy every third Thursday.” It’s a year since Jensen saw his Ma, and if she’s so much as been to Arcady since, it’s against Jared’s wagering. But never mind. Comfortable complaint is a tone that don’t appear to trouble Jensen none, so he’ll take it. 

“You need to rest?” he asks, and Jensen nods, so Ma Ackles walks out the room. Her hip’s troubling her, though she swears it’s the furniture here rather than encroaching age. But Jensen’s gaze says he knows what it’ll have cost her to come on this trip, and that he’s glad. Jensen’s hand is tangled about Jared’s, and Jared’s going nowhere, even if Jensen probably does need the rest indeed. 

Jensen tugs, and Jared goes willingly, wriggling onto the bed, and arranging them till they’re sprawled the way they should be. “Less space than a damned bunk,” Jensen mumbles, turning his face into Jared’s neck, and he sleeps so fast and hard the nurse coming in to check on her patient a half hour later can’t begin to wake him. But Jared’s content enough. This is what he was missing.

*

Convalescence at the hospital is enough to send them all a fair way toward crazy, and they ship out for Green Acres a couple weeks before advised, on a tide of medical doubt and accountant protestations. It’s mostly the lower billing they’re lamenting, Jared notes, and reckons Jensen’ll be okay. 

The journey out to Arcady system is a mite strenuous. Jensen won’t hear of hiring a pilot, having taught both Jared and Kai “so you're capable, for the goddess’s sake, what’d you think I was prepping you for, just the odd shuttle run down planetside?” And the nav, heavens know, is simple enough. Jared suspects Jensen could plot a course back to Arcady system blindfold from any spot in the verse, but he leaves them to it, not even wincing at the way Kai plots so slow. 

Which is more than can be said for his reaction to their piloting. Jensen flies like breathing, and here’s Jared trying to get out of a tight spot in a crowded space station bay, he’s gonna take his time, okay? He’s not gonna rush, not gonna, shit, hit anything coming up unexpected in his blind spot. He’s sweating by the time they get clear, and hands off to Kai for the simpler distance run without a qualm. When you have the lives of everyone you love in your hands, be prepared to find it fearful. And sure, he’s had that, and more, taking long watch in the black, but it’s more impersonal there, like the great ships are invincible. This little hopper? Not Jared’s speed. He sits back, by Ma Ackles, and listens to Jensen swearing in the co-pilot seat as Kai makes the smallest, most meaningless, error. An exchange of glances with Ma Ackles almost sends him giggling. But hell, it shows Jensen’s still the same, and that gives Jared every hope that they’ll have their captain back okay soon.

*

He is, once they get to some greenery, some air and sunshine. Dogs and cattle and taking their turn in kitchen and barns like the rest of the hands. Jensen heals up fast, but muscle build is slow, and sometimes he dreams of Rush – so much closer in Jensen-time than for the rest of the crew, who had time in the black to ponder on life’s uncertainty. It’s all certain, on Green Acres. Weather may turn, crops may fail, but spring follows winter, and the sun will shine again eventually.

Jared’ll never wholly be a downsider. It surprises him still, that the sun comes up and nobody’s making it so. The twin suns and the bulk of Arcady in the sky are reassuring. It’s not Old Earth, with its tiny satellite and single sun, and no feel for what’s up and out there. But it still chafes a little, the way space life never does on him, under it all. Odd, then, that he calls this place ‘home’ now, in back of his mind. But so it is. There’s always a space for him here, and for Kai, (who’s chafing as bad as Jared but is learning to hold house like it’s keeping her sane, or more like she’s got an eye to a future as a Q, wise kid), and for Wack if he’d ever take it. Two hands are old acquaintances of Jared’s now, tried in space and found wanting, preferring a solid life on the earth. It’s good, if not forever.

Healing goes all ways, so Jared spends some time telling Jensen what went down on his ship while he was gone. It’s a lot to spill, and not all of it happy, but it’s time to lay it all out for Jensen and talk about how they can be better, if they’re serious about this Corp thing. Jensen frowns it out plenty, which you would expect. Money is an issue, to a point, and betrayal is a worse.

A good thing he does lay it all out honest, because they get a comm from Nix not so long after landing, with news of Mag. “She called me.” Jared hates the way Nix’s face is now. She’s built for snark and spark, and not for this mix of sad and fury. “She apologised. Asked if I’d like to spend my off time with her. Apparently, I may be dumb, but I’m great in the bunk. And, yeah, her employer’s still looking for an in with AcklesCorp, so, you know, _opportunities_.” 

Which is how the family Ackles end with another houseguest, and a spitting furious one at that. Atmosphere and quarters are both a little strained, it being autumn and high time for farm labour as well as returning spacers. But it’s good for Jensen to see Nix, and seems like it’s mutual. Pa Ackles has his eyes out on stalks at her language and her tales, but when she lets on her ranching family background, he has her on horseback fast enough. Seems like everyone’s finding a place here, Jared ponders, and feels an itch of unease amid the swell of content. They won’t be here forever. Right?

It’s amid the richness of a fat harvest that Pa Ackles raises that very question. Jared can’t get used to this: table groaning, dairy and squash and tomatoes and meat, and _freshness_ aplenty. They’ll feed leftovers to the small pig herd, for hell’s sakes, when the ship’s company would eat plate scrapings from this, and gladly. He’s maybe a little distracted with the food situation, because when it comes, the question seems to come out of nowhere. “So, son, you tired of space yet? Mighty dangerous life you’re leading. Must’ve thought of retirement, settling down?”

Now, Jared’s observed too well how much older Pa Ackles looks than the last time they met, a couple years back. So he takes some of that with due scepticism. This is a guy thinking of his own old age, and if anyone’s retiring, it’ll be him. Also, Jensen’s outraged face at the suggestion that his great age is past time to be getting out of the game he loves puts beyond doubt the fact he's not thinking of it yet. Jared doesn’t even know what his own face is doing, but let’s say he’s not feeling real urgently like putting his slippers on for old age just yet. He’s barely _thirty_. And Kai can stop giggling, thank you. Nobody’s gonna be calling Jared _old man_ any time soon.

“Uh, nope,” says Jensen, and damn if he doesn’t sound more farm boy than he’s done in an aeon. “I’m not fixing to settle just yet, Pa. But-“

Jared’s head jerks at that. But? He’s planning on decades more of space with Jensen. Isn’t that the deal? 

Jensen’s continuing, leaning back, tilting his head to bring his mom and Nix in on this, “Thought we could have a discussion, maybe, about changing up the Corp. Not just the transit jobs, maybe? Our downtime’s long, with not so many ships, means we’re not earning all hours, you know? So… Look, I ain’t costed all this, and we’ll have to work it through between us if you’re willing, but… How does a settlement Corp strike you? We could buy some land, out Mnemosyne way, maybe deeper into the Muse too, terraformed but not Corp owned yet. Ferry out settlers, but ferry out farm goods too. They get the worst leavings, those guys. Jared was telling me about Euterpe, it’s just rich soil and water and nothingness. Send them good seed, breeding stock, maybe even trans-ship fresh goods if we’ve cryospace, offer them a life that’s more than abandoned on a rock to make what they can?”

Jared kind of thinks it makes sense, but he waits out the others. Ma Ackles looks… actually a little teary. Which isn’t like her when it comes to business, she’s plenty hard headed. “Like the early days,” she asks. “How it was, pioneering from Old Earth? Before the Corps.”

Jensen ducks his head, rubs a reddening ear. “Yeah? I guess. I mean, maybe it’s not possible nowadays. Like I say, we’d need to be costing it. But it seems like it’d be good to have links between the worlds, right? Not just Corp deals, but…”

Nix says, “You better buy some more ships, Jen.” He looks at her sidewise, and she shrugs. “You pull that off, you’ll be shipping colonists off the Belt faster than you can build. My folks’d go. Plenty would.” 

Jensen’s proposing something that’s way more than a few farms and a shuttle run between them. Jared only twigs it when he watches the others respond. He’s too much a station brat to have known just how the planet folk chafe at their Corp-sponsored isolation. It's a new way, or an old way rediscovered, and it's a challenge. A risk, too, that means. They're very, very small, but there's plenty of folk tired of the Corp ways that keep them down. One man to start a revolution? Jensen tried that once with arms and blood, and he'll never repeat that hell. But this kind of revolution, working with people to make places people can live, better than scum and farther out in the verse but still a part of it…

Jensen's right, it needs accounting and all kinds of work, but it's a thought that bears thinking. He sees it writ on the faces around the table. Nix is nodding, fiercely. "I'm in, Jen. Was looking to buy in anyways, but this? I'm with you." Which makes Jensen grin, and tip his glass to her in thanks. Good to have Nix aboard. Anyone doubting her loyalty among their late crew'll be silenced by putting her money down, which won't hurt her feelings any. She's calmer now, but it’s been a bad few months for Nix. He's glad to see her sparking again. 

Jensen's parents are exchanging a look, a nod, a confirmation. It's his Pa that speaks, but no doubt there's agreement between them on this one. "Son… we were thinking we'd hand this place over to you, if you want it. When we go." He pauses, and Jensen's jaw hangs loose in unfeigned startlement. "Don't mean to tie you down, but we gave your brother and your sister their heads when they married, made over their shares of profit. This place ain't worth so much, but it's a base. You think you can make that scheme work, this is your starting farm." 

The roomful of people is deeply silent, waiting for Jensen. Jared's grinning fit to split his face in half, and Kai looks like she has a notion how much this might just matter to their captain. Nix is chewing on a last cake, looking unconcerned, but of them all, she knew Jensen longest in his exile, and she might just have an idea, too. 

Jensen clears his throat, all rusty and awkward. "That's… that's a real nice thing to hear, Pa. Real nice. I'll get planning, then." He stands up, like it's urgent to be getting on with accounting and futures right now, then stops, and wraps his dad in a hug so tight the old guy's pleased expression turns a mite concerned before he gets loose. Jensen repeats that on his Ma, and walks out the kitchen in what looks to Jared like a daze. He's steady enough on his feet now, but Jared still propels himself after with a bare excuse on his lips. 

He spares half a thought to the tableau they're leaving behind, and how they're going to cover the silence Jensen's created in his wake. Too much high emotion for a tableful of half-strangers, maybe. But he's following after his love, today, and damn the crewmen. Can't be on duty every day. 

Jared drapes an arm around Jensen, casual-like but prepared to hold him up if he needs support. Jensen's still too thin under the weight of his arm, less substantial than he should be, but he's walking firm enough. "Back to the bunk?" Jared asks, nosing gently behind Jensen's hair in a ticklish spot. Their sex has been cautious, gentle stuff since Jensen came back to him. Jared's no intention of breaking his captain, no matter Jensen's urging, and he's plenty happy with being slow. 

"Nope," says Jensen, and his voice is clear. Not emotion-choked, then. Surprising. "We're heading to the clearing."

Well, that's not a thing that Jared would ever complain about. He has good memories of that place, from the first time they fucked there to last visit, when one of the hands damn near caught them and they had to lie silent-still, coupled and too damn close to coming for anyone's comfort. 

When they get there, Jensen tips up his face to the dark skies. Arcady's high in the heavens, looming in their consciousness. "I'm sorry, Jay," he says, and something inside Jared thumps painfully. That's not how he expected this would start.

His arm drops off Jensen's shoulders, as they sit themselves down on the grass. It's a cool night, with the smack of coming winter in the air. Jared suppresses a shiver. Something's wrong in their world, and he doesn't even know what it is. 

"I'm sorry I left you alone in the black," says Jensen, and- Well, that makes a kind of sense, if you're a fool the way Jensen can be. Jared moves and makes the start of a protesting sound, but he's cut off by Jensen's finger against his lips. "You'll say I couldn't help it, but it was bad for you. We don't have anything you could fall back on, without me."

"I'm not some dainty maiden needing a big strong hero," Jared protests, silencing finger be damned. His mouth moves against that finger, stimulating all kinds of thoughts, and by the look Jensen gives him, he's not alone in that. So probably this will end well, when Jensen's worked out what he's worrying at. 

"No, but- I was on my own a long time, Jay. And then there was you, and us, but I carried on living like a captain, I reckon. Not a partnership, for us or for the Corp. Need to change that, don't I? Don't we? I ain't your boss, kid, 'cept on shipboard. You need to tell me so, and we need to live like it too. Set up as a Corp, proper. And I shouldn't go spinning castles in the air without a proper consultation. Turn us into a shuttle company and a settlement service over one dinner with my folks. You and Wack both need words on that. You ain't farm boys, maybe that's nohow your dream. I'm sorry."

Jared badly wants to kiss that one off his stupid, gorgeous face, but fact is, Jensen has a point about most of that. Except for- "I don't ever want you to stop thinking up ways to make the worlds better, Jen. Thinking aloud, maybe, but that's how you think best, I reckon. Take a week, take a month if you need it, work out the practicalities. Talk with your Pa-" Jensen twitches at that, and subsides, "-and me, and Nix, and her folks, and we'll think it through. And then we'll wait. Look for a short job, maybe, or anyways wait to do anything till we have Wack's say-so. Then we'll found the Corp all right and proper, all clear about our work too." Jensen frowns. Jared adds, "Or something that way, to be confirmed _tomorrow_ , Captain Ackles. No need to think all ways around it just now."

He enforces that one with a kiss that takes Jensen in the sweetest of spots and that both of them sink into awhile. Jared knows there's more that Jensen wants to say, but he's distracted by the proximity and the want that's taking him over. They've had little privacy and space enough since arriving on Green Acres, and given the _Delta_ 's limitations, let alone cryo break, they haven't had leisure to stretch out and let go for far too many months. He makes a little enquiring sound, and Jensen affirms, wordlessly groaning, that he's prepared to let the future lie in pursuit of the present. 

After a long while of entangling, leisurely and wanting, Jensen seemingly gets impatient, and shoves a hand down Jared's coveralls. "You planning on doing anything with this anytime soon?" he growls, hand harsh and demanding on Jared's dick, so that Jared arches hard into him and grits teeth against the wave of need that provokes. "Because I am not your sickly little princess either, Jay. I need this, now. Stop fearing to hurt me, and _fuck me_ , please." 

Apparently so, because Jensen's carrying slick, which hasn't been usual _at all_ since the hospital, and Jared wonders how much of tonight was planned, and how much happy accident. Jensen was planning on getting fucked, apparently, and hard, by the way he's moving, rough with himself and speedy-sloppy as he slicks up Jared's dick. Which, Jared can take a hint, not to mention a blatant order turned to request by one little please. He takes over slick, opening Jensen up half-rough and half-careful, knowing his limits, and realising half-horrified how long it's been as he meets more resistance than his muscle-memory expected. 

By the time Jensen's spread out for him, knees splayed and ass canted up, Jared's pretty near done himself. Too long, since he had all this without restriction, and the slow slide inside almost undoes him entirely. Jensen's cursing lightly, murmuring it into the grass, ass still pressing back for more, till Jared's balls-deep and has to take a breath. 

"You with me?" He murmurs it into the back of Jensen's neck.

Jensen reaches a hand back, catches Jared's. Holding tight a moment, and then, "Always." Big emotion in the word and his voice, but he shimmies his hips at the same time, in a motion Jared's long known means _Get to it_ , so he does just that. 

He's looking at the stars when he comes, Jensen three beats behind him and cursing still into the earth, as Jared's hard judder tips him past his control. 

They roll clear, after a while, still breathing hardish, and touching at shoulder, knee, hip, everywhere they can. "I meant to ask, before all this-" Jensen says it smiling, a gesture down at their damp, satisfied bodies, "You want to be mine on the earth as well as in the black? Promised you the stars, a ways back, but seems like we might be headed planetside sometimes. You in?"

"Always," says Jared. Easiest decision he ever made. The black's his dream, but building on the worlds is a good part of reality. And yeah, it'll be a struggle, and there will be more enemies, and more betrayal and loss, and hearts in their mouths for survival more often than a sane man would like. But he's certain he wants to be there with Jensen, wherever there is on any given day. 

Jensen kisses him hard, up on an elbow and leaning down. He looks a little nervous, for reasons Jared can't begin to fathom. "Me too. Should have a ring, I guess, but you hustled me off station too damn fast for fancy shopping. But let's do it, kid. If you want me?"

"Oh," says Jared, who wasn't thinking that way at all. They've never, ever spoken of making themselves official. It's rare, in space, where lovers come and go according to voyages and the whims of orbit and Corps. Commonplace here, though, on the dirt where people stay in place for decades. He didn't realise before, when Jensen was talking about formalities, that they were a part of what he wanted to tie up with paper and legalities. 

He tests the idea. Not for too long, Jensen's nervousness is turning to worry, with a touch of disappointment. "…Yeah." He says it finally, as his belly fills with warm, stupid happiness. "Let's do that. Swear on a Book that you're mine and I'm yours, and always will be." As he says it, Jensen starts to smile, and by the time he finishes, they're grinning at each other like a pair of fools, moonlit and surprised the suns don't rise to celebrate what two humans can do together. 

Earth and skies. One foot in each. But together. 

***


End file.
